Origin clout a blow to Melbourne

Date: November 21 2012

Roy Masters

RUGBY league's commissioners were appointed principally because of their independence and business savvy, but their recent decisions demonstrate they are simply politicians and as beholden to their constituencies as the men they replaced.

Tuesday's announcement that Sydney and Brisbane will continue to host two state of origin games in alternate years for the next five years, except for a lone match at a neutral venue in 2015, reeks of fealty to the state bodies who appointed them, especially Queensland.

The decision will particularly please former Queensland treasurer Terry Mackenroth, one of the four men who chose the eight commissioners.

Mackenroth, nicknamed ''Minister for the Broncos'' when in Parliament and now a board member of the Queensland Rugby League, lobbied hard to ensure half the ARLC, including chairman John Grant, either lived in the northern state or supported the Maroons.

When reports circulated that the Victorian government was willing to pay $2.5 million a game to host an annual origin match in Melbourne for the next six years, the Queensland government was most defiant about not paying to host an event which it had always got for free.

Victorian Major Events, the government-owned company which pitches for imported entertainment, later revised the offer for a game in Melbourne in each of the next two years, meaning Brisbane would have been forced to sacrifice a game to Melbourne in 2013, as Sydney did this year.

In fact, every origin game played in Melbourne bar one in 2009 has been sacrificed by Sydney.

Now, as a result of Tuesday's ARLC decision, the Queensland government-owned Suncorp Stadium won't lose a game over a seven-year period, except one, probably to the MCG in 2015.

The Maroons haven't had a total victory because the commission has ruled Sydney and Brisbane must swap the traditional order of rotation in 2013.

Instead of Brisbane hosting two games next year, Sydney will. Brisbane will stage two games in 2014.

There would be two reasons behind this switch: the Sydney based members of the ARLC must be anxious to stop Queensland winning an eighth consecutive origin series; and NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell probably paid for the opportunity.

Rather than coach Laurie Daley and his Blues travelling twice to Brisbane next year, NSW has a chance of stopping the Maroon rout at the privately owned Homebush stadium, where it has a 68 per cent win record.

Given that O'Farrell, a passionate Blues supporter, was desperate to retain matches in NSW, while Queensland said it would not pay for games, we're entitled to wonder how both states ended with seven games each over the next five years.

Victorian Major Events' past payment for origin games included $400,000 to employ rugby league development officers in Victoria.

Apart from growing the number of players, origin also boosted ratings. More Melburnians watched the Storm win the NRL grand final than Sydneysiders watched the Swans win the AFL premiership, despite the Swans being in the NSW capital 16 years longer.

If the Storm slip down the ladder the next three years, rugby league will lose momentum in Victoria.

The only positive in Melbourne hosting the 2015 game is that no international rugby union teams visit the city that year.

The ARLC has also demonstrated its Queensland bias with the State Cup. Channel Nine will televise every Queensland Cup game live throughout the season, while the NSW Cup must take its chances with Fox Sports.

An ARLC press release indicated Fox Sports will televise three games a week across the Toyota Cup Under-20 competition, the NSW Cup and the elite schoolboys competition in 2013. Given that Toyota Cup games are curtain-raisers to the televised NRL competition and the NSW Cup is scheduled for different days, it's a reasonable assumption Fox Sports would send its cameras to the Toyota Cup.

The only guaranteed NSW Cup game on free-to-air TV is the last one, played on NRL grand final day.

In fact, Grant has indicated he would like to see a play-off between the victors of the NSW and Queensland state cups, suggesting the NSWRL could lose its grand final to free-to-air TV, as well.

Despite its business background, the ARLC seems content to endorse the anti-competitive saying, ''two's company, three's a crowd''.

Victorians are entitled to ask whether they were better off when the ARL and News Ltd ran the game, given that Rupert Murdoch has tipped in $65 million to the Storm and successfully lobbied for a rectangular stadium in the AFL city.

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